


Drink Me

by dark_roast



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 10:31:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dark_roast/pseuds/dark_roast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony buys a bottle of rare liqueur at an auction in Las Vegas. Of course, he drinks some. He starts seeing a hallucination of Loki, who warns Tony that he's been poisoned. Tony's doctor assures him the hallucinations will fade, but several months later, Loki shows up at Tony's house. At first, Tony questions his sanity... then he begins to wonder whether this version of Loki is actually a hallucination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drink Me

About an hour and a half west of Las Vegas, Tony starts feeling peculiar. He hasn't imbibed enough alcohol to be drunk. Or even pleasantly buzzed. He was stone cold sober when he climbed into the Acura NSX, and pointed its nose toward Los Angeles.

Okay, maybe it wasn't the most well-reasoned decision to start a five-hour drive across the desert at midnight but, like most of his bad ideas, it seemed like a perfectly good idea at the time. Pepper doesn't need him for the rest of the conference anyway. Tony is only doing the smile-and-wave, and Pepper is much less likely to piss somebody off than Tony is. So, Tony heads home.

It's Tony and the Acura and the desert night, and three isn't a crowd. The air smells of motor oil and sweet desert dust, and the lush pungency of creosote and sage. Tony's half-listening to Art Bell and a caller discussing a bottomless pit located in eastern Washington state. A year ago, Tony would have dismissed a "mystery hole" as amusing bullshit, the same way he used to dismiss ghosts and alien abductions and Bigfoot. But, after you've wasted a perfectly good Wednesday fighting an army of lizardmen led by a pissed-off god, then flown through a transdimensional rip to divert a missile straight into a mothership, nothing seems impossible anymore, or even improbable. He hates that. He likes hard facts and neat sets of numbers. Things he can touch and quantify, take apart and understand. Gods and magic and mystery holes need to stay in the realm of fiction, where they belong.

By the time he's emptied his third bottle of Aquafina and tossed it into the foot-well on the passenger side, he realizes how damn thirsty he is. His mouth and throat are burning, and a headache is starting to pulse behind his left eye. He's a lot more tired than he was when he left Vegas. He's deep in the Mojave, and there's nothing around for miles.

"There's no such thing as a bottomless pit," says Loki from the passenger seat. "I ought to know."

The Acura swerves across the median of I-15; Tony over-corrects too fast, and the sleek vehicle veers toward the scrubby shoulder of the freeway. He stamps on the brake, bringing the car to a squealing, dust-pluming halt at the side of the road. The engine revs once, then coughs and quits. Tony's heart is pounding hard.

"Get out," he says.

Loki's mouth curves into a smile.

"Get the fuck out of my car!"

Loki isn't wearing his Asgardian armor, but instead a long-sleeved henley shirt of a color Tony can't make out in the darkness, though it's a safe bet the shirt is green. He's leaning one arm casually out the open window. These details seem at once irrelevant and critically important, as if Tony is missing some vital clue right in front of his nose.

"Back on Earth, huh?" Tony says. "Didn't we kick your ass hard enough last time?"

"You've awaited my return with dread in your clockwork heart, ever since Thor told you I'd escaped from Asgard."

Tony scowls at him. "Hate to break it to you, peaches, but I am not afraid of you."

"Then there's no reason you wake in the middle of the night, I suppose. It's not the nightmares of falling to your death? It's not the persistent paranoia that everyone in your team is mind-controlled, except for you?" Loki clicks his tongue in disapproval. "You're not afraid of me, perhaps. But you are afraid. Don't lie to a liesmith."

"So, you can read minds now? That can't be good for your self-esteem."

Loki grins. "You're hallucinating me, Tony Stark."

"Why would I hallucinate _you_?"

"Because you are…" Loki taps his chin with one finger. "What is the Midgardian vernacular…? Ah, yes. Tripping balls."

Tony snorts in surprise and amusement. He's on the verge of automatically denying it, but he can't deny that he doesn't feel right. His heart is still beating too fast, and his surroundings seem unreal and hyper-focused at the same time, like he's running a fever. He didn't take anything; he doesn't do that. But that doesn't mean he wasn't _given_ something.

"What is it?" he says. "Is it poison?"

"How should I know?" Loki replies with an elegant shrug of unconcern.

Tony stretches out his hand, expecting it to pass through Loki's chest and feel nothing but air. Instead, his fingers touch soft cotton with the firmness of flesh underneath. Tony yanks his hand back.

"Perhaps you should call 911. Instead of trying for second base."

Thor's little brother is right. Tony fumbles his cell phone out of the compartment between the front seats. His thumbs feel gigantic, and it seems like he has more than two of them. He forces himself to focus on the phone's keypad. He's got no cell reception this far out in the desert, but his Starkphone is equipped with satellite service.

As the emergency operator comes on the line, Loki adds, "I never did get that drink."

Tony glances into the back seat of the Acura. He can barely see the carved wooden box. It's just a darker shadow among shadows. He's not drunk now, but he was plenty drunk six hours ago when he wandered into a private auction at the Luxor Hotel, and dropped seventeen thousand dollars on a bottle of ratafia de cassis from 1836.

"I can't believe Miss Potts refused to share that with you," Loki says.

Tony frowns at him. He's having a difficult enough time explaining to emergency services that he cracked open a nearly two hundred year old bottle of liqueur, and he's dying of botulism.

***

Turns out, it's not botulism. It's belladonna poisoning.

The pretty doctor at UMC is trying very hard not to look delighted as she explains to Tony that his ratafia de cassis was made with nightshade berries instead of currants.

"It was intended to poison someone," she says. "Just not you."

"Unless I've perfected time travel," Loki adds, from where he's sitting in a chair near Tony's bed.

"So, I'm going to die," Tony says. He's surprised at how little the idea upsets him. But he's horrified that he came very close to accidentally killing Pepper.

"Oh no, Mr. Stark," Dr. Prahdu replies quickly. "You'll be fine. You just need bed rest. If you'd drunk the entire bottle, it would be a very different story. "

"I didn't like the way it tasted."

Dr. Prahdu bends over him to adjust his blankets. "Lucky for you."

She's a lot more excited about the antique belladonna-laced liqueur than she is about having the famous Tony Stark in her care, but Tony can't work up much more than a mild disappointment over that. He's far more concerned about Loki, who's leafing through a creased and ancient issue of _Martha Stewart Living_.

Tony says, "The symptoms… how long do those last?"

Dr. Prahdu's hands go still on the blankets. "Are you having an adverse reaction right now?"

"You could say that, yeah."

She glances in the direction Tony is looking. Loki rises from the chair, tosses the magazine aside, and strides over to the window. Now that it's morning, Tony can see that Loki's henley shirt is indeed dark green. Loki is also wearing blue jeans and black cowboy boots. He pulls back the curtain and frowns at the view.

"I smell burnt toast," Loki says to Tony. "Maybe you're having a stroke."

"Are you hallucinating?" asks Dr. Prahdu.

"I sincerely hope so," says Tony.

"Well, everyone's brain chemistry is unique, but I expect your symptoms will gradually disappear over the next few days."

Tony sighs.

***

He never should have told the hospital staff about his lingering symptoms. They won't let him drive himself home to Malibu. Instead, Happy comes to pick him up in one of the limos. That's not so bad, really. Happy has seen Tony at his worst, and Tony certainly isn't at his worst right now. He's just tired. He wants to go home and get some sleep in his own bedroom, instead of a room where they wake him up every two hours and poke him to make sure he's not dead.

Happy catches Tony's eye in the rearview mirror, and says, "So, the doc tells me I have to keep tabs on you."

Tony shakes his head. "I'm fine."

"She said you'd say that."

"Oh? And what else did Dr. Prahdu say?" Tony asks, annoyed. Not the least of which because he knows he's not going to like the answer.

"She said you're having some problems."

Tony scowls. "Seriously? All the years you've worked for me, and the one bush you pick to beat around, is this one?"

"You shouldn't be embarrassed about it, boss."

"I am not embarrassed," Tony snaps.

"Only because you've got no shame," says Loki, as he materializes in the seat facing Tony's.

"Oh, Jesus Christ."

Loki stretches out his legs, and crosses his ankles. His cowboy boots aren't merely black, they're black snakeskin, with silver toe-caps. He still has the crumpled issue of _Martha Stewart Living_ he was reading in the hospital room. This is a disturbingly detailed hallucination.

"Are you..." Happy is watching him in the mirror, eyes wide and worried.

"No. No, I am not hallucinating Jesus. Keep your eyes on the damn road."

"I'm just saying," says Happy. "I had an imaginary friend."

"So did I," Tony replies. "When I was four."

"Oh, Mr. Pickles... where are you now?" says Loki.

"Go _away_ ," Tony tells him.

Happy takes this in stride. "It's some part of your subconscious mind, boss. Ask what it wants."

Tony hates to admit it, but Happy does have a point. Loki's first appearance was to warn Tony he'd been poisoned -- although the second time Loki had shown up, it had apparently been with the sole purpose of annoying the shit out of Tony.

"Well?" he says to Loki. "What do you want?"

"You're the one hallucinating me," Loki counters. "What do _you_ want?"

 ***

As Dr. Prahdu predicted, over the next few days, the belladonna works its way out of Tony's system, and Loki appears less and less frequently, until he stops showing up altogether. After an entire Loki-free week, Tony is cautiously optimistic that he'll never see Loki again.

After another week, Tony sort of misses him.

***

He doesn't see Loki again for several months. Long enough to mostly forget about ever seeing Loki in the first place. A week after Thanksgiving, Tony walks into the living room of his Malibu house, and Loki is sitting on the long white leather sofa, like Tony invited him over to watch a football game.

Tony halts in the doorway between the living room and the hallway, his heart sinking. This time, Loki is wearing a black three-piece suit and a white shirt. His tie is dark green. Tony thinks about Loki standing by the window in the hospital room, saying he smelled burned toast.

Right. Time to schedule an MRI. Immediately.

"JARVIS," Tony says.

"Yes, sir?"

Loki glances up, his eyebrows rising, looking for the source of JARVIS's voice.

Tony says, "How many people are in this room?"

"Sir?"

"So... it's just me, then."

"Yes, sir."

"Did you truly believe your electronic lackey would prove any impediment to me?" Loki says.

"Don't insult JARVIS. He's very sensitive." Tony gestures at Loki's suit. "Wedding or funeral?"

"You don't seem surprised to see me."

Tony shrugs. "Well. You know." He gestures at his head. "Brain chemistry."

Loki's brows flick together.

Tony crosses the room toward the bar. "Let me guess. You want that drink. I guess I owe you for Vegas. What's your poison? And don't say belladonna."

"I did not intend to say belladonna," Loki's frown deepens as he rises from the couch and crosses the room to stand on the opposite side of the bar from Tony. "I am unfamiliar with Midgardian intoxicants. What do you recommend?"

"Depends on how intoxicated you're planning on getting. Wait. Can hallucinations even get drunk?"

Another flicker of confusion crosses Loki's face, before his mask of cool arrogance returns. His shoulders fall forward slightly, and he places both hands flat on the polished wooden bar top. "There is but one way to find out."

Tony turns his back on Loki, under the pretense of picking out the perfect booze. He's no longer sure he's talking to a hallucination. As Loki already pointed out, JARVIS is no more of a challenge for him than a hook-and-eye latch.

It's Loki's brief uncertainty that makes Tony wonder whether Loki is real or imaginary, but there's also something that keeps Tony from calling the Mark V, and giving Loki a face full of repulsor fire. It's the way Loki's body relaxed slightly when Tony dismissed him as a hallucination. Maybe Loki actually does want that drink. His dark hair is no longer slicked back severely, but instead falls over his forehead and suit collar in rumpled waves. He looks tired.

All the same, while Tony makes a pretense of hunting for a highball glass and the maraschino cherries, he snags the Mark V's bracelets from the bar top, and snaps them on surreptitiously. Then he reaches up to pull the blue Curaçao off the top shelf. He turns and bangs the bottle down on the bar with a flourish. "Prepare to get polluted, O Ye Figment of My Imagination."

Loki raises his eyebrows. "Very well."

He watches as Tony fills up a highball glass with ice, then adds a succession of gin, vodka, tequila, white rum, sweet and sour mix, then the blue Curaçao, topping off the drink with a quarter can of Sprite from the mini fridge, and dropping a straw and a maraschino cherry into it. He sets down a cocktail napkin in front of Loki, and sets the drink on top of it.

"Adios, motherfucker," says Tony.

"I have not had sexual intercourse with my mother," Loki replies. He doesn't look upset. On the contrary, he's smiling at the virulently blue concoction fizzing in front of him.

"That's the name of the drink. Adios Motherfucker." Tony raises his scotch. "Say _via con dios_ to your sobriety."

***

It takes two AMFs to get Loki's necktie off. Two more, and he's shucked his suit-jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt. He turns out to be a fearsome air hockey player, once Tony lays out the rules for him. By the time they abandon the mixed drinks and start on the shots, Tony has lost track of how much booze they've consumed.

"You are not a cheap date," he tells Loki.

"There is nothing cheap about me. I am a Prince of Asgard," Loki replies as he collapses onto the sofa, his long limbs sprawling out. "Or I was. Once."

"That's why you want to rule the Earth?"

"No."

Tony flops down beside him. "No?"

"You humans are inconsequential. I was a prince. And a king. I wanted what was taken from me. The rule of a realm. But the conflict was… distasteful. I did not relish it as I thought I would."

Tony nods. "Wanting is almost always better than having."

"How remarkably cynical you are, for a creature with such a short lifespan."

"I try not to want anything for too long." Tony picks up the bottle of tequila and pours another round of shots for himself and Loki. "I'm much happier that way."

Loki takes his glass, but instead of drinking, he considers the liquor in front of him. "You were once a merchant of weaponry, were you not?"

"Yeah," says Tony.

"As was your father before you."

"That's right."

Loki seems about to ask another question, but then he sits up, drawing his arms and legs in. He turns to Tony, his blue eyes narrowing. Tony tenses, brushing his fingers across the bracelet on his left wrist. But all Loki does is drink his tequila shot, and set the empty glass on the coffee table.

"Tony Stark," he says. "Thank you for your hospitality."

Startled, Tony replies, "You're --"

Before he gets the second word out, Loki is gone.

"...welcome," Tony says to the empty room.

***

Director Fury folds his hands on his desk. He doesn't say anything right away. All he does is give Tony a long, assessing look from his single eye, until Tony feels like he's back in the third grade, being stared down by Principal Montenegro. He tells himself that he absolutely, positively will not squirm in his chair.

Finally, Fury picks up a stack of papers and taps them on his desk, squaring the edges. He sets the stack on the left side of his desk. For some reason, that perfectly-aligned pile of paperwork annoys the shit out of Tony.

"I didn't come here to waste your time," he says.

"I'm aware of that," Fury replies. "And I appreciate your diligence, but --"

A knock on the doorframe of his open office door makes them both turn to look. Steve stands in the doorway. He gives Tony a friendly nod.

To Fury, he says, "Sorry. Got here as soon as I could."

"Have a seat, Captain Rogers."

"Look," Tony says. "I didn't want to turn this into a thing."

Steve grins at him as he sits down in the vacant chair in front of Fury's desk. "So. Visit from Loki, huh? What did you guys do?"

"Air hockey and tequila shots. But --" he raises a hand, even though neither Fury nor Steve has tried to interrupt him. "I wasn't drunk before Loki showed up. And I got the results of the MRI this morning. I'm fine. Nothing up there that's not supposed to be there."

Fury says, "How certain are you that the Loki you saw Tuesday night was the real Loki?"

"Very certain. Ninety percent. Eighty-five to ninety."

"But, not one hundred percent."

"Well," says Tony. "No."

"I'm sure you considered," Steve says, "maybe it's not your brain; it's your mind."

"Sure," says Tony. "Yeah. Of course. But, it's been months."

Steve nods. He already knows about the incident with the ratafia de cassis. The entire team knows. The day after Tony got back from the hospital, he typed up a detailed e-mail and cc'ed everybody on the team. There was no way a story like that wouldn't spread all around SHIELD in a matter of days. And, as always, Tony figured if he was going to get laughed at, he might as well be the first person laughing.

"The difficulty here," Fury says, "is that we can't actually do anything."

Steve nods, his brow crinkling. "If Loki can appear and disappear at will, and there's no predicting when or where he'll pop up next --"

"Or even if he will, " Fury points out.

Steve shifts in his chair, angling himself toward Tony. "If he does show up again, talk to him. Draw him out. Get him to tell you what he's planning."

Tony scratches his beard. Oh, right. No problem. Even when he was positive Loki was a hallucination, he couldn't get Loki to tell him what he wanted. "That's Natasha's bailiwick," he says. "Not mine."

"He's not showing up on Natasha's couch."

"So, can Natasha just sleep on my couch, until...?"

Fury gives him That Look again, and reaches for the stack of papers.

***

This time, Tony tells himself, he is going to be prepared.

He sets up equipment all over the Malibu house. Electromagnetic sensors, air ion counters, infrared cameras. Loki can probably evade detection on every single one of these devices, but Tony is hoping that if Loki is confronted by a wide range of machines, all trying to sense him and record him, maybe he might overlook one or two.

Pepper keeps insisting she believes Tony. Whenever he explains what he's doing, she tilts her head and frowns at him with earnest attention. It makes him feel like she secretly thinks he's nuts. She never used to put up with this kind of crap. But, ever since he got poisoned, she's been excruciatingly tolerant. Or maybe he's only imagining she is.

He's absolutely sure he's going to see Loki again, and he's not wrong.

In fact, Loki shows up a lot sooner than Tony expects. Tony is downstairs in his workshop, fiddling with the palm-cannons on one of the older Iron Man suits. It's not like he really _needs_ them to shoot webbing. He just wants to see if he can do it. He becomes aware that he's not alone. The sensation creeps over him gradually. Anyone else would have announced their arrival, so he knows exactly who it is. He takes his time snipping a few wires, then he glances up.

Loki is sitting in the swivel chair at his desk. Tony is about to say hello, all casual. Ask if Loki has ever played Grand Theft Auto. The words die in his throat. Loki isn't wearing a suit this time, but instead his green and gold Asgardian armor. That's not what strikes Tony speechless. Loki looked exhausted the last time Tony saw him, but tonight, he looks straight-up terrible. His face is pallid, his eyes shadowed in purplish-brown. The way he's leaning on one of the arm rests, it's like he's holding himself upright by sheer force of will.

"Um..." Tony says. "Hi."

"Hello," Loki says. His voice comes out cool and level, and dripping with disdain.

Tony tries not to look at any of the corners of the ceiling, where he's positioned the infrared cameras, and him not looking is probably an obvious tell. He sucks ass at this spy versus spy shit.

"I knew you'd be back," he says.

"Well," Loki says, "the first step is admitting you have a problem."

He sounds so much like his imaginary counterpart that Tony laughs.

"Is that not the Midgardian expression?"

"Yeah. That's it." He gestures at Loki with his wire cutters. "You wanna tell me why you look like eight pounds of ridden-hard-and-put-away-wet, crammed into a four pound bag?"

Loki frowns, and Tony can practically see the little blue ring icon spinning over Loki's head, as he processes Tony's question.

"No," Loki says, finally.

Over Loki's shoulder, Tony sees Pepper walking down the stairs. Pepper freezes, halfway down. She sees Loki. She _sees_ him. Tony wasn't one hundred percent certain Loki was real the last time. And now it's too late.

Either it's Tony's expression that alerts Loki, or it's Loki's godlike super-senses. Loki turns swiftly in the chair, and he sees Pepper. Tony expects Loki to disappear, like he did the last time. He didn't try to hurt Tony then, and he hasn't tried to hurt Tony this time, either. But, Loki doesn't vanish.

An uneasy feeling coils in Tony's stomach. Pepper startled Loki. Something about this situation is really, seriously wrong.

"Please," Tony says, his voice coming out low and choked. "Don't."

Loki is so tense he's almost vibrating. He doesn't look at Tony. Nor does he answer. Pepper hesitates a second longer, and then she continues down the steps, toward the workroom.

 _No,_ Tony wants to tell her. _Goddammit, no. Run. Get out of here._

He already knows trying to run would be the worst possible decision. Loki would catch her easily, like a cat catching a moth. Tony doesn't even want to contemplate what Loki would do to Pepper, just for petty revenge on Tony. Just for fun.

The Plexiglas door of the workroom slides open, and Pepper walks in, looking far too vulnerable in her blue yoga pants and her yellow tee shirt, her hair caught up in a ponytail.

"So, you're real," she says to Loki.

She sounds slightly amused, but Tony can tell by the set of her shoulders, and the tightness at the corners of her mouth, that she's as scared as he is.

Loki stares at her a second longer, and then he says. "You knew."

Even though Loki's attention is focused on Pepper, Tony knows Loki is speaking to him.

"Yeah," Tony says. "I knew. The last time you showed up here. I wasn't sure. Not completely."

He sets down the wire cutters. The small click draws Loki's attention; his head snaps around. His eyes are wide and dark.

"Look," Tony says. "I'm well aware you can kill both of us in the next five seconds. But, I am asking you politely not to do that. I could've had SHIELD all over your ass last month, when you showed up here, and I didn't."

Loki lowers his eyelids slightly, and his mouth flattens contemptuously. He doesn't say it, and he doesn't have to. Tony might have _tried_ to contact SHIELD. He wouldn't have succeeded.

"Fine," Tony says, "but you --"

Pepper gasps. "You're hurt! You're bleeding."

Her accusatory tone is very familiar to Tony. Suddenly focused, she crosses the room toward Loki, in three quick strides. Loki recoils in the chair. Tony doesn't blame him.

Pepper turns on Tony. "Tony. He's _hurt_."

Tony stands up, and walks around the workbench. As he comes closer to Loki, he sees what Pepper saw. Loki is sitting with his right hand wedged awkwardly against his side. It's the side of Loki that's been turned away from Tony. There's blood all over Loki's fingers, and blood has seeped through the leather tunic underneath his long coat. It's darkened Loki's leather pants nearly to his knee, and there's probably blood all over Tony's favorite ergonomic chair, that Brookstone doesn't even make anymore.

"Hey," Tony says.

 "Do not touch me," Loki says, soft and menacing.

"Hey," Tony repeats more firmly. "You need help. Medical attention. JARVIS?"

"Sir," replies the AI, "There appears to be an intruder in your workshop."

"JARVIS can see you now. How interesting."

Loki's gaze meets Tony's and holds it, defiantly and furiously.

"You need to go to the hospital," Pepper says.

Loki sneers at her, as if to say he's far above her primitive mortal aid. Pepper, not surprisingly, isn't at all fazed by this response.

"Fine. Then feel free to leave any time," she tells him.

Tony says, "Whoever did this to you -- are they going to come after you? Find you here at my house?"

"Those who did this to me are not even of this realm," Loki replies.

"Chitauri friends disappointed with you? I'm shocked."

"No," Loki says sharply. "These... individuals were Vanir mercenaries. I bargained with them to ensure my safe passage out of Asgard, and they betrayed me."

Pepper snorts. Loki gives her a look from the sides of his eyes.

"Very well. I betrayed them. But, only because they would have turned on me eventually. They're creatures of no honor."

"You'd know best," Tony says. Easy shot, but he can never resist low-hanging fruit.

Loki rolls his eyes, and says, "I've slain them to the last. I left none standing. You need have no fear."

"It looks like they nearly slew _you_ ," Pepper says with asperity, and crouches down beside the chair. "Let me see."

Tony blinks at her; he and Loki exchange a startled look, as Pepper leans over Loki and lifts his hand out of the way, peeling his long leather coat gently aside. She grimaces.

"Tony," she says.

It's even worse than it looks from all the blood. There's a long gash torn in Loki's leather tunic, and something dark and shiny protrudes from the gash: a blade chipped out of volcanic glass, broken at the end, as if it had been the tip of a spear.

Tony glances up at Loki's white, strained face. "Is this why you can't pop out of here?"

"It's envenomed," Loki explains reluctantly. "I cannot remove it. I can't even touch it."

"But, it's touching you," says Pepper.

"That is so," Loki replies.

Pepper's face is eloquent. Loki murdered Phil, and only Loki himself knows how many other innocent people, but Tony still agrees with her completely. He turns and walks back across the room to the work table, where he starts gathering up some of the tools scattered around, and scooping them into his tool box.

"I'll get the first aid kit," Pepper says, then she gives Tony an apologetic wince, as if to say she knows that won't be much help. "And towels. What else do you need?"

"Booze," Tony says. "Bring a large bottle of booze."

She raises her eyebrows at Loki. "What's your poison?"

Loki smiles slightly, as if remembering when Tony asked him the exact same question. "Tequila. If you please, Lady Stark."

"It's Lady Potts," Pepper says. Then she turns briskly and heads for the stairs.

Tony picks up his tool box and carries it back across the room to where Loki has slumped lower in the chair. Tony considers the complicated arrangement of armor plates, belts, flaps and layers that Loki's wearing.

"Is that what you were doing here last time?" he says. "Hiding out from your Vanir pals?"

"I knew they would never think of looking for me here." Loki shifts in the chair. "So. Your companion is the wife of another?"

He sounds both uncertain and impressed. Tony laughs.

"No. Pepper's not married. Far as I know. She's my girlfriend. You get what that..."

"Yes, of course. You mean she is your lover."

"And my best friend. By which I mean, if you decide she must be my weak spot, you're going to get an extremely unpleasant surprise. Possibly more than one."

"I assure you, I had no such thought. I underestimated you once before, Tony Stark. I won't do so again."

"Well," Tony says. "Okay then." He sets the tool box on the floor, pulls out a pair of light-duty metal shears, and gestures at Loki with them. "Can you climb out of that fetish gear? Otherwise, I'm gonna have to cut it off of you."

"I cannot stand," Loki says. "Cut it off me."

He gestures with his left hand, the hand not gripping the armrest of Tony's chair. The gesture is obviously supposed to be unconcerned, and Tony resists the urge to roll his eyes. He begins by cutting through the belt hanging from the shoulder guard. The leather is buttery-soft, but it doesn't part easily under the blades of the shears. Tony wonders what kind of alien beast it came from.

"Why are you helping me?" Loki murmurs.

"Because I want you out of my house."

Loki laughs softly. It's not a mocking villain laugh; he sounds genuinely amused, and resigned to his situation.

"Besides," Tony adds, "you helped me once. Well, not _you_ exactly."

"The hallucination you mistook me for."

"Yeah."

He starts cutting through the long coat itself, underneath its heavy shoulder guard, from the arm hole to the lapel.

"Why did you hallucinate me, in particular?" Loki asks.

"I dunno. Maybe because I see you as a threat, and anything you had to say to me, was something I needed to pay attention to."

Loki doesn't ask for the story behind the hallucination. Maybe he doesn't give a shit; maybe Odin brought up his sons to be polite. Thor is unexpectedly courteous for a space Viking, after all.

Pepper returns with the towels and the first aid kit, which is actually bigger than the three-Band-Aid box Tony was expecting. She's also carrying a bottle of Patron Silver and a glass; she sets all that on the work bench, crossing the room away from where Tony is crouched down beside Loki.

"Dummy," Tony says, "get over here."

Dummy comes rolling out of the corner of the workshop, servos whizzing softly, and Tony feels Loki draw himself up again, in surprise.

"Gimme a light," Tony tells the robot. "Right here."

Dummy scoots closer to Tony and Loki, and the light above the robot's camera clicks on. Tony reaches up to adjust the robot's flexible neck, so the tight beam of light is aimed directly at the wound in Loki's side. Loki reaches out with his left hand and gives Dummy an inquisitive poke with his finger. Dummy, equally inquisitive, turns its head to look at Loki. Tony grabs the robot, and readjusts its head-lamp.

"Don't play with my toys," he tells Loki.

"My apologies."

Tony takes a deep breath, and then slides the blade of the metal shears underneath the leather of Loki's tunic. Loki flinches, and sucks in a breath between his teeth.

"Sorry," says Tony.

"Do what you must."

Pepper comes over on Loki's other side, and hands him the glass full of tequila. It's not a small glass. Loki takes it, downs the liquor in three swallows, and hands the glass back to Pepper, giving her a nod of thanks.

Tony cuts the thick leather of Loki's tunic away from Loki's side, exposing a torn black shirt underneath, sticky with blood. He peels the fabric back and, under the blood, Loki's skin is deep cerulean. Striations of blue snake out from the edges of the wound.

"That can't be good." He glances up, to meet Loki's eyes. "I don't know what I should do. Should even try and pull this out of you?"

"Why? What's amiss?"

"Well, you're... uh... you're blue."

"Ah," Loki says.

"That's normal for Asgardians?"

Something ugly and raw surfaces in Loki's eyes, and is gone again. "You needn't be concerned."

Tony shrugs. "Okay."

He puts the shears back in his tool box, and rummages around. This is going to hurt Loki a lot, no matter which tool Tony picks for the job. He's always expected to feel petty satisfaction at a moment like this, but all he feels is queasy and worried.

"Pepper," he says, "Bring the towels, okay? And get ready."

Pepper looks as worried as he does, but grabs the towels, and stations herself on the other side of Tony from Dummy. Tony finally decides on a pair of long, needle-nose pliers. He's watched enough medical dramas on TV to know if somebody gets stabbed, you're not supposed to pull the knife out. Yet, if he doesn't pull the glassy black blade out of Loki, Loki won't be able to heal himself. He'll just bleed to death slowly in Tony's ergonomic swivel chair.

"You sure?" he says to Loki.

Loki nods. He grabs hold of the chair arm. "Be swift. That is all I ask."

Pepper says, "Do you want me to hold your hand?"

Loki looks up at her, his expression a mix of suspicion and surprise, as if he's sure Pepper is making fun of him. Tony knows her question is sincere. Pepper doesn't take cheap shots like that; her insults are much classier. Loki's expression softens.

He says, quietly, "Not unless you wish me to crush your fingers."

 "Oh," Pepper says. "No. Thank you."

Tony sets his grip on the black blade with the pliers. "Ready?"

"Yes," says Loki.

"Okay. We're going on three. One..."

 _"Enough,"_ Loki snaps. "You --"

Tony pulls. One fast, strong pull. The blade inside Loki comes free a lot easier than Tony anticipated, and Tony tumbles back onto his ass. Loki makes less noise than Tony expected. Tony would've been yelling and swearing a blue streak, but Loki utters a sharp grunt and sags against the side of the chair. Pepper darts in and presses the towels to his side. The blade caught in Tony's pliers glitters black and red with Loki's blood, and Tony drops it on the floor beside the toolbox. He climbs to his feet. He'll take a look at the thing later. Right now, he's disgusted by it.

Loki hangs onto the chair arm, panting shallowly, eyes closed. He stretches out his right hand and grips Pepper's wrist.

"Stop it," she tells him sternly. "I'm trying to help you."

"You needn't. I can heal myself now."

Looking dubious, she pulls the wad of towels away. The side of the towel wad that was pressed against Loki is dark red, but the gash in Loki's side has already scabbed over. The flesh around the wound is fading from blue to pinkish-red.

"You're alright?" he asks Loki.                  

"Well enough," Loki replies. He looks up at Pepper, and then his gaze fixes on Tony. "You have my thanks. I won't forget this."

Tony shrugs one shoulder. "Sure you will."

"I will not," Loki tells him.

He always has to have the last word, of course. He's gone in the time it takes Tony to blink. Dummy scoots backward, bumps against Tony's leg like a toddler, then lifts its camera to Tony.

"Don't look at me," says Tony.

Pepper crosses the room to the work table, and tosses the towels down. They're clean. "Not big on goodbyes, is he?"

There's no blood on Tony's swivel chair, but the left armrest is wrenched out of shape, and the seat cushion is torn along the seam. The scraps of Loki's tunic and his coat are gone from the floor. Tony glances over at his toolbox, where he set the shard of black glass. That's gone, too. No way Loki would have left something that valuable behind.

"Well, shit," Tony says. It seems to be the most appropriate comment for the occasion.

He scruffs a hand through his hair. It feels sweaty. He sighs. Maybe all the sensors and cameras actually caught something. Maybe not. Either way, at least now he can write up a report for Fury. He has Pepper to back him up.

"Do you think he'll be back?" says Pepper.

"No. He's got no reason to come back."

She puts her hands on her hips. "He could've at least fixed your chair."

***


End file.
